A Study of Some Emphatic Arabic Particles in the Glorious Qur'an with Reference to Translation

Abstract

This paper sheds light on emphasis (corroboration) in Arabic and the ways of emphasizing speech. Emphasis is widely used by Arabs to strengthen the meaning and to remove any doubt a receiver may have upon hearing an utterance or reading a statement. Unlike English, Arabic by its nature tends to use overstatement in many situations. So it uses emphasis heavily to give extra force to a word, a phrase or a statement. The study aims at (1) showing ways and purposes of emphasis in Arabic. (2) showing how emphatic expressions are realized in English. (3) pointing out some problems a translator may face when rendering such emphatic texts particularly in the Glorious Qur'an. The study hypothesizes that since English opts for understatement, the rendering of emphatic verses may not be as forceful and emphatic as the original. The study comes out with the conclusion that the renderings are often not as emphatic as the original.